Egypt’s annual headline inflation rate rose to 7.1% in December 2019, compared to 3.6% in November of the same year, Invest-Gate reports.

The monthly inflation fell 0.2% in December 2019 compared to a decline of 0.3% in November 2019 and 3.4% in December 2018, according to a statement by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) on January 16.

On the other hand, the annual core inflation rate stood at 2.4% in December 2019, compared to 2.1% in November 2019, driven by higher poultry prices.

Inflation overall remains within the central bank’s target range of “9% (±3 percentage points) in 2020 Q4,” the CBE said in a statement.

The bank referred to “the strong unfavorable base effect stemming from the reversal of transitory shock to prices of fresh vegetables in the previous year.”

The decline in food prices for the fourth month in December “confirms the state’s success in containing inflation” by increasing supplies enough to offset seasonal price spikes, Allen Sandeep, director of research at Naeem Brokerage in Cairo, told Bloomberg.